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I am more afraid of the main army interfering when they see their comrade of 10 years hauled off for treason than I am of a reckless ploy to try stop the gate.

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Reinhard is the commander here and he commands authority. People love him.

If he gives such an order, the soldiers will believe him and follow.

The other Houses' guards might not, but they are a minority here, and to revolt against an heir to the throne and a reknown commander is a road from which there is no return. Those who are not accused of treason will think twice before walking it.

The army was crumbling to the spider goddess' forces and a few turncoats could have routed the whole lot before we arrived and they didn't reveal themselves then.

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Who says they didn't sabotage the defences or did not supply the spider demon army with information?

They are in the minority, which is why they can't reveal themselves and have to act secretly.

The other issue I thought of with the portal is the Beast and his cohort fighting the seekers for the termination point once it is established.

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Mazzarin would be the one opening the Gate. Good luck fighting him.

That we are opening the Gate inside the city which does not seem to have fallen also serves as a security measure. If they couldn't break into the city by now, they should not interfere with the portal directly.

Please anyone that wants to add to the plan or discuss leadership of roles do chime in.

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I will try to clarify the plan sometime tomorrow when I have more time.

As for your questions, my guesses would be:

Do we wait to go to Reinhard till after Mazzarin says yes or get Reinhard on board first and use him to help convince Mazzarin that be needs to get to the city asap?

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Get Reinhard on board right now and get to 'preparing' his own forces for the journey, determining who is loyal and who isn't. We will need the loyalists to apprehend the subversives later, since we don't have the authority to do it ourselves, and his forces have the benefit of following him directly, which means we can do this without asking the other Lords or waiting for Mazzarin to wake up:

He will help us get Maz on board with the plan since we are not on best terms with the Mage.

What groups do we want through the portal and how do we take prisoners?

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We will need to play a bit of 'sheep and wolves' here, always maintaining numerical superiority on both sides of the portal in case of the traitors revolting.

A thing to keep in mind is that the Watcher's agents can be awoken on a signal from the Beast (implying they have a link to it somehow), but the rebels/cultists don't have a direct contact with their Goddess (at least, according to her sister). So the Watcher's agents can revolt on external command that we can't really 'mute', while the cultists need physical coordination or leadership. As such, the Watcher's agents pose a bigger threat to our operation and should be dealt with first.

Another thing to keep in mind is that thought the traitors 'loyal' to the Watcher are bound to be magical in nature (anyone who was not subdued by him and served him willingly probably would probably rethink their allegiance now that he is losing the campaign and with Maz around), you don't need to be touched by the Goddess to be a cultist or a rebel. We should be prepared that at least some of those will slip through the cracks, and plan accordingly.

I wasn't particularly worried about the Beast taking the portal from Mazzarin but from the Seekers when they host it. I didn't think Mazzarin was going to be holding it open the whole time but only initially casting but I guess we should ask Fangshi how the Girls think it will work.

I wasn't particularly worried about the Beast taking the portal from Mazzarin but from the Seekers when they host it. I didn't think Mazzarin was going to be holding it open the whole time but only initially casting but I guess we should ask Fangshi how the Girls think it will work.

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My understanding of the plan as it stands is that, that is correct. If you have Mazzarin give control of the portal over to the Seekers then they will be the ones to defend it from any attacks. So long as Mazzarin is nearby and free to help/retake control, he can also do that.

No, it is an active spell. It can be stolen or attacked. The aggressor would simply have to defeat the mages currently maintaining it and then make the necessary changes to the spell to achieve whatever effect they would like. That would require a fair bit of magical knowledge to successfully pull off though, the attacker would need to identify the spell, defeat the defenders without collapsing the Gate (unless the intention is simply to collapse it) and then they would need to know enough to modify it.

If they do not realize what is going on, or if they are not strong/skilled enough to affect the spell then there is little they can do.

1- Biv2- leaning heavily towards E, but do we have something to persuade Big M into opening that gate for us? For all I know, he may tell us to fuck off and open our own gate.E
3- C If there's an issue here, it's between her and us.4- C It's kinda sad that out of all the mages around here, our best option is a wet behind the ears rookie. 5- A

2- leaning heavily towards E, but do we have something to persuade Big M into opening that gate for us? For all I know, he may tell us to fuck off and open our own gate.

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1) He left the planning for us, saying, basically 'call me if it is something you can't do, and do the rest yourselves'.
2) He is a busy man, and this saves us about a week. Besides, how else you can ensure that the city does not fall if not by retaking it ASAP? The plan is tactically sound and there are few, if any, alternatives that are demonbstrably better.
3) And this is yet another opportunity to flaunt his magical prowess, seeing how no one else among us can do it reliably.

If the question could be framed as 'this is our best chance, but that's a tall order; can the Great Mage really do this?', the answer is invariably going to be 'Of course I can!'

Okay. I will try to look at the plan and see what are its main strengths and weaknesses, and how to best use them or get around them respectively.

The first strenght is that it does not require much in a way of getting approval of the other Lords. The plan is hard to argue against. Why would you disagree with relieving Stoneheim immediately and choose to leave its fate up to chance? And if Reinhard decides that the Royal army will go along with it, what choice do the rest of them have? To stay behind and walk there on foot? That would be no better than deserting and walking back to Myrgard, because by the time they reach the city the battle would be already over.

So it should avoid one of Reinhard's main concerns:

Getting Lords Berg and Seinsheim to cooperate though may take more time than we have.

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We can start gathering the Royal forces and checking 'preparing' them right away while the Prince gets the Lords up to speed so that their guards could follow suit.

Preferrably, we should be done with this part by the time Mazzarin wakes up and asks us WTF is going on, because the Mage knows better than anyone that you don't need any special insulation from 'harmful influences' to use the Gate. If not, then, hopefully, Reinhard can either stall him until we are done (he has no idea of our plan yet) or explain why we are taking that extra step without him alerting the whole camp. Alternatively, we could inform him through Emrys.

To do everything quickly we will need to enlist the help of Finn's host, and to find Finn we should free Cropper first.

We should know who is who in the army by the time the Gate opens.

So far I see the option to deal with the traitors outside of the view of the main army is the preferred one. Alright.

We should ask Reinhard if there is a location in Stoneheim that is big enough to hold the entire army, and that is easy to secure and defend, and removed far enough from the conflict raging there that it has a reasonable chance to stay in one piece. The Gate should open there, drawing from his/Finn's/Mazzarin's memory of the place, similarly with how it was with Eris.

One question we need to decide is if Maz should stay on our side of the portal, or go in once he is done casting the spell and tranfers it to the Seekers. Things are going to be much more orderly wherever he stays, as he has the power to quell any potential unrest and I doubt anyone in the army would openly oppose him after the Sea of Glass.

I think we should send Finn's people and our mercs under Berty on the other side, along with a considerable amount of loyalist forces with someone who is both uncompromised and commands a lot of authority (probably General Kjell, if he proves to be loyal). The General should be made aware of who the subversives are so that he could deal with them accordingly.

We also need to make it clear that we belong to the Royal army, lest the city defenders try to kill us.

Our mercs should go in fully armed (explosives included), which we could explain away with them being specifically trained for Gating warfare, while the others should be separated from the explosives under one pretext or the other. The grenades and other ammunition will be handed to them upon arrival. Naturally, those crates should be protected almost as heavily as the Gate itself.

The explosives should only be trusted to the ones loyal to the cause. The subversives should be disarmed (if they weren't already) and subdued somewhere where the main army can't see it, which should be relatively easy, considering they won't have explosives and will be facing overwhelming odds. The given reason for their apprehension should not be treason - which is, as far as I know, punisheable by death and therefore will force them to resist - but something more innocuous. Maybe their 'Gate insulation' proved to be less effective and they have contracted the 'Void disease' (the symptoms may include higher irritability, lack of respect for authority, and occasionally shouting "I'm perfectly fine, you fucks, give me back my equipment!") and thus have to be quarantined for a day or two until they get treatment. Just a minor setback that will be corrected shortly, meanwhile, please proceed to the gas chambers infirmary.

Ideally, they should not even become aware of their predicament.

Between the lack of knowledge on the subject and the army discipline where you can't really question your superiors, I believe it will help us handle the matter with the bare minimum of resistance. Nevertheless, we should position our mortars in a way that would allow us to shell any potential troublemakers, just in case. Still, I think even if there would be disagreements, we have Finn's fairies to glamour people into compliance, so I hope it would not come to that.

The Lords, Berg in particular, will require a different approach, but, thankfully, there are only two of them.

We should maintain the numerical/qualitative superiority of loyalists on both sides at all times.

We aren't really required to do anything in particular once the plan gets off the ground, so I guess we can choose to be on whatever side of the gate we feel we can help more. Probably with Finn and the rest of our mercs, helping the General in charge with his task and smoothing things out. That still leaves Maz&Reinhard to run the show on their side of the portal.

Mazzarin will work both as a guarantee of public order, and a safety net in case someone decides to mess with the portal.

Once on the other side, the army will probably need to take a bit of time to restructure, given that there probably will be some commanders who are compromised.

I guess Reinhard will be the one deciding what to do with the 'quarantined' forces. Maybe they can still be used to form suicide squads or something.

So... what do you think? Any glaring weak points that should be addressed?

Will read ideas and vote soon guys. Sorry for getting late, I don't have so much time now.

"Si non confectus, non reficiat"Arguing with stupid people is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon will just knock the pieces over, shit on the board, and strut around like it's victorious.

1. Captured Cropper (and Enrico): How do you wish to handle the situation?

E) You will leave Cropper and Enrico to make their own escape.

2. Mazzarin, the Impatient: When Mazzarin wakes up he is going to want to continue south. You want to screen the army however and that is liable to take a few days. You will need to convince him somehow to do what you want.

3. Emrys and the mail: Did you try to get Emrys to let you look at Lyssa's letter to Mazzarin or did you deny your curiousity?

C) Ask Lyssa about the contents of the letter when you are alone.

4. You currently have a number of unidentified items on you. You could potentially try and get the Seekers to identify them, provided they don't know those belong to you. Do you go through with it?

C. No, you do not want the Seekers poking around in your magical items. Instead you will offer Emrys the opportunity of identifying them.

5. Provided that Cropper finds Finn for you and provided you succeed in your plan to stay at the oasis for a day or two, you can ask Finn to send a runner to Muirthemne to take care of some matters, like delivering a message to your team and recovering Gullveig's correspondence which might help you with the investigation. Will you go for it?
A - yes, send a runner.

"Si non confectus, non reficiat"Arguing with stupid people is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon will just knock the pieces over, shit on the board, and strut around like it's victorious.

Write the outline of the plan as per this post and show it to Reinhard. See if the Prince has any insights or see any potential weak points that need to be addressed, or if there is anything he might have done differently with the resourses at our disposal.

Preferrably, we should be done with this part by the time Mazzarin wakes up and asks us WTF is going on, because the Mage knows better than anyone that you don't need any special insulation from 'harmful influences' to use the Gate. If not, then, hopefully, Reinhard can either stall him until we are done (he has no idea of our plan yet) or explain why we are taking that extra step without him alerting the whole camp. Alternatively, we could inform him through Emrys.

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It is currently evening, if you want to screen the whole army before Mazzarin wakes up you will need to work through the night.

However, since almost everyone is off celebrating it will take several hours to break up the festivities and get everyone back to their proper units. Is is also likely to instill a bit of resentment on the part of the troops, since you will be breaking up their reveling.

We should ask Reinhard if there is a location in Stoneheim that is big enough to hold the entire army, and that is easy to secure and defend, and removed far enough from the conflict raging there that it has a reasonable chance to stay in one piece.

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Nothing that fits all of your criteria springs to mind.

1. There is the old palace grounds on the lower rings of the city. They would be far removed from the the necromancers and might be safe and intact. They would be a bit crowded though with an entire army going through them. Also if there are demons attacking the city from within then that is a likely target for them.

2. There is a large park on the third ring, a memorial garden. It would provide a lot of space but it would not be the most defensible place.

3. There is the old arena, in an earlier age the dwarves would make captives and monsters battle one another for their amusement, the practice has since waned though it is not actually against the law. The arena would be a bit small for an army and it may be difficult to secure though it would provide more protection than the park would once secure.

4. The entrance to the grand mausoleums on the second lowest circle is a giant, clear field of stone. It will be free of obstruction and well removed from the Beast's army. Of course you would be starting right near the bottom of the city and would need to climb the rings up to the surface.

5. There is also the garrison's marshaling squares on the first level of the city. This would drop your army right near the fighting if you think that might be helpful, there would not be a lot of room though you could always make use of multiple squares, opening and closing gates to different parts of the city, come to think of it...

6. You could split the army up without too much difficulty through it would require different gates, either is sequence or parallel. You could then seize more than one location though it would mean a weaker presence in each.

He does not see any glaring weaknesses with the general idea you have proposed but you still need to decide on a lot of the details. He can't really give feedback on most of it when he is not sure what path you intend to take.

Also, he notes that a lot depends on how cooperative Mazzarin feels like being, but that fairly obvious.

It is currently evening, if you want to screen the whole army before Mazzarin wakes up you will need to work through the night.

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Sounds like a perfect job for Finn & Co. Night is when they are at their best.

However, since almost everyone is off celebrating it will take several hours to break up the festivities and get everyone back to their proper units. Is is also likely to instill a bit of resentment on the part of the troops, since you will be breaking up their reveling.

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The scanning itself takes a few minutes, and then the guys would be free to do whatever they like again. Assembling the troops, though, that might take time.

There will be plenty of time to celebrate when we deal with the Watcher's horde, and the sooner we get there, the more will get to live to see that part.

Besides, no one gets to relax if we don't!

Still, I am not sure myself if we should hurry before Maz wakes up, though if we aren't finished by then someone will have to explain to him what this is all about, and we don't want to be those guys.

3. There is the old arena, in an earlier age the dwarves would make captives and monsters battle one another for their amusement, the practice has since waned though it is not actually against the law. The arena would be a bit small for an army and it may be difficult to secure though it would provide more protection than the park would once secure.

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Why is it difficult to secure? It is a stadium, right? Secure the outer perimeter and you should be fine.

4. The entrance to the grand mausoleums on the second lowest circle is a giant, clear field of stone. It will be free of obstruction and well removed from the Beast's army. Of course you would be starting right near the bottom of the city and would need to climb the rings up to the surface.

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Is there a problem with that? How far is the city from there?

Wait, 'second lowest circle'? What does the city look like? How many 'rings' are there?

5. There is also the garrison's marshaling squares on the first level of the city. This would drop your army right near the fighting if you think that might be helpful, there would not be a lot of room though you could always make use of multiple squares, opening and closing gates to different parts of the city, come to think of it...

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I believe a crude map might not be out of place. What different parts of the city are there, and why are they separated with gates?

Any other squares in the first ring? Perhaps closer to the city center? The army does not have to fit in one, we can occupy a whole district if needed.

What would he prefer? Suppose that no other magical shenanigans are involved and the choice of destination is fully up to him, which place would he choose?

Also, he notes that a lot depends on how cooperative Mazzarin feels like being, but that fairly obvious.

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He would not have a lot of choice in the matter if Reinhard will back the plan up as the one that is most likely to secure Stoneheim. Mazzarin is a mage, not a general, and by what we have seen of him, he is a pretty lousy strategist. Given the choice between casting spells and looking awesome (which is all that is required of him), and coming up with an alternative and equally effective plan (which would not involve craling through the desert for a week), he should prove agreeable to the former.

He just needs to be told that all alternatives are worse and even more demanding of him. Guess that might be the case where Reinhard's 'family art' comes handy.

Why is it difficult to secure? It is a stadium, right? Secure the outer perimeter and you should be fine.

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It is in a state of disrepair, abandoned, and home to junkies, criminals and the like. Also there are a lot of smaller tunnels underneath it, they were used to get prisoners and animals to and from the arena floor. There are entire sections of the arena that can open and close at the flick of a switch (or at least they used to be able to do that, they may well be rusted shut at this point or otherwise broken).

Wait, 'second lowest circle'? What does the city look like? How many 'rings' are there?

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Twelve rings, each built upon one another going up toward the surface.

Each is protected by rather heavy fortifications, many quite ancient in construction. On top of the main gate is built a large fortress but it is mostly military housing, and defensive works on the surface.

Ring 1 consists of more military housing and training facilities in the main caverns just under the surface. This is also the level the extremely poor are confined to, slums abound.

Rings 2-4 are for the working poor, the servants of the rich, peasants and the like. The arena is on ring 4.

Rings 5-7 are mostly for farming, crops that do not require much in the way of light, and herding.

Ring 8 has been claimed by the merchant houses.

Ring 9 is for the nobility and contains many of the most important temples.

Ring 10 (along with part of ring 9 and 11) belongs to the royal family, not that it sees much use by them. It is also the seat of government for the city.

Ring 11 is mostly uninhabited. It contains great reservoirs from which the city tends to draw its water. There are also some fortifications and the royal retreat down there.

Ring 12 is for the dead, it is where the dwarves buried their ancestors.

To keep out the riffraff and to defend the city. Dwarven history was rife with internal conflicts before they reached the surface and the older, more powerful clans would push the weaker clans into the caves above them, away from a secure source of water. The gates were often built to prevent outcasts from forcing their way back down.

Once the dwarves reached the surface their priorities changed but they found that all the fortifications they had built still served a useful purpose. To keep out foreign invaders.

Any other squares in the first ring? Perhaps closer to the city center? The army does not have to fit in one, we can occupy a whole district if needed.

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As the first ring is mostly slums the exact layout of it changes as buildings collapse in on themselves and fires clear out cluttered blocks. The marshaling squares are the only ones Reinhard can guarantee are clear since the military keeps people from building on them.

What would he prefer? Suppose that no other magical shenanigans are involved and the choice of destination is fully up to him, which place would he choose?

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He would take the park on the third level if everything was equal. It is exposed but it would give the army enough space to work with. He is not sure if the trade off would be worth it since he does not know how things are within the city at the moment.

We will need to reorganize after we arrive and sort through the people - and we don't want to be interrupted. Perhaps the army would need to rest, too, given that the soldiers would be up half of the night being scanned. We'd likely have to wait before regain our top combat ability.

Still, he is a tactician, and it might be good to have an option to react fast if something requires our immediate attenton. We will deter to his choice, since we've never been in the city ourselves.

It has enough space to let the whole army through and set up camp, it is far enough from what should be the front lines to be reasonably safe and it is close enough to let him march to the front on arrival.

We will need to reorganize after we arrive and sort through the people - and we don't want to be interrupted. Perhaps the army would need to rest, too, given that the soldiers would be up half of the night being scanned. We'd likely have to wait before regain our top combat ability.

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Well if you want a more defensible position you could push for one of the other options.

Well, we probably need at least an hour to sort through the traitors when we get to the other side. It would be best if we were some place quiet and large enough to hold our entire force so we don't have to worry about the logistics of splitting our forces three ways during the portal jump. That leans me towards the mausoleum.

If we are going to do the inspections tonight we might want to just do the main army as we can use Reinhart's authority to call them up for inspection. Use the excuse that we already came up with for magical attunement.

D&T assume he would have no problem helping but they have not had a chance to talk to him about it. He has disappeared again and they do not know where he has gone. They speculate that Cropper might know but they have no confirmation of that either.